Do we stay, or do we go?

Savvy_Sue

I'm also going to add a thought about that student you've got.

ATM 'home' is where they grew up. They've got friends local to you, they know their way around.

If you move, unless it's a VERY local move, they may feel that there's less incentive to come 'home' for extended periods. They may feel it won't be that easy to see their local friends; if you've shifted somewhere with limited transport it may be easier for them to go and stay with them.

And in a certain sense, they lose their 'home'.

Now over time that won't matter so much, because they'll have their own 'home'. But I know neither DH nor I ever felt 'at home' again after our respective parents moved house while we were at university. It wasn't 'our' home any more, it was just the place where our parents lived.

And that meant we spent less time there than we might otherwise have done.

Pollycat

Munchkin08 wrote: »

Not nearing retirement just yet...
I am 41, and my Husband is 48.

And yes we are 40% tax payers, so maybe upping our pensions is the way forward.
We have arranged a meeting with an independent pensions advisor.

Might be worth posting on this board:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=19
(Penions, Annuities & Retirement Planning board).
Some very savvy people on there.

supermezzo

Buy to let isn't worth it to you, you mention, but is buying a 1st property for your uni child something to look into, perhaps?

fred246

I bought a large house when my children were young just as a lovely place to bring them up. Detached so we could make lots of noise. They all all had their own large bedroom & bathroom. Always had lots of family over for christmas. Now they have gone to university and I have taken early retirement. It was a great investment and has gone up lots in value. I now see it as a bit of an insurance policy. If I run out of cash I can downsize and liberate a few hundred thousand £s. It should be still going up in value if slowly and when the children are at uni we just shut the door to their bedrooms & bathrooms and turn off the heating. I was shocked though when I was looking at early retirement websites. Having a large house is seen as a bad move because the money put into your property could have been used to put into pension funds. In a way my property is a pension fund. In the OPs position now though I would plough it into pensions unless you love work so much you'd never want to stop.

eamon

I suspect that the OP has acquired a little of the prestige house/location ideal. All well and good if you can afford it. But it is only an object to live in. IMHO she has already identified all the things that she likes & loves about her current home and location. Why move and risk all that?


During the week I watched "Location, Location" and they were looking for a new home for an apparently wealthy middle aged couple, prepared to drop £750k on their new home. Downsizing to a 4 bed home? It may be me sub-conciously being jealous, but I just didn't get it and didn't understand what they really wanted. The last property that they looked at was a 4 bed, part of gated community and with at least £1200 pa of service charges. It didn't tick any of their boxes.

fred246

I always feel you need to go small big small with property. The smalls are married couple before children and the other is when the children are set up in their own properties. The large is when you have children growing up with loads of toys. After living in a larger property though, you can work out what you really need. I could downsize but I know that I would want detached. We hardly use our drawing room or dining room. Two toilets and two bathrooms would be fine(maybe even one bathroom). Bedrooms don't need to be that big. My kids have flat TVs, hardly any paperwork, no vinyl collection, hardly any CDs/DVDs, books. So I could still downsize and free up a lot of cash. However moving costs so much that I wouldn't do it until there was a need.

Pollycat

eamon wrote: »

I suspect that the OP has acquired a little of the prestige house/location ideal. All well and good if you can afford it. But it is only an object to live in. IMHO she has already identified all the things that she likes & loves about her current home and location. Why move and risk all that?


During the week I watched "Location, Location" and they were looking for a new home for an apparently wealthy middle aged couple, prepared to drop £750k on their new home. Downsizing to a 4 bed home? It may be me sub-conciously being jealous, but I just didn't get it and didn't understand what they really wanted. The last property that they looked at was a 4 bed, part of gated community and with at least £1200 pa of service charges. It didn't tick any of their boxes.

I suspect what they really wanted was to get their faces on TV and have their 15 minutes of fame.
It's no surprise to me that any property didn't 'tick their boxes'.
I feel the same about almost all Location, Location, Location and Escape to the Country 'participants'.

sooty&sweep

Hi
Personal opinion I'd stay. You sound happy where you are !
The thing about a bigger house is not just the purchase cost but the running costs too & why increase those if you don't need the space ?

The things I'd consider using the spare cash for would include paying the mortgage off faster, interest rates are low at the moment but they will go up. Buyi a holiday home in this country or abroad, you could rent it out if you want to take an income off it and helping my child with university costs so he doesn't leave with massive debt !

Cheers

Jen

Primrose

Trade up too much and in these uncertain political times yiu could also end up having to pay Mansion Tax if there was a change of government.

Davesnave

Primrose wrote: »

Trade up too much and in these uncertain political times yiu could also end up having to pay Mansion Tax if there was a change of government.

A mansion tax was proposed by Vince Cable, originally at £1m and later updated to £2m.


Even if implemented, I doubt if it would affect many of us here, since it would apply to properties valued at levels distinctly above the average price.